


How About Now?

by GrumpyJenn



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M, Mattex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-30
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-17 08:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn





	How About Now?

Most people looked younger asleep. _But not Matt,_ Alex thought, _Matt looks older_. Maybe it was because it was his birthday, maybe it was the two or three silver hairs he complained about good-naturedly, or maybe it was the five o'clock shadow that she rarely saw because she usually encountered him in full costume and makeup.

Or maybe she’d had rather more to drink than she’d thought.

Well, she was sober enough to walk across the hall to her own flat in the Cardiff block where they lived while filming. She’d better wake him first so he could pre-emptively treat his own probable hangover though, and so he could lock the door behind her. So she leaned down to kiss him lightly, but he responded even in his sleep and she let herself just sink in.

Matt was dreaming - as he often did - of Alex. Specifically of kissing Alex, and _mmm_... it seemed so _real_ this time. His hands went into her hair and he opened his eyes so he could see her beautiful green ones, and...

...and sat up abruptly, inadvertently yanking her hair as his fingers tangled in it. She gasped at that and he swore. “What the hell, Kingston! What are you _doing_?” She pulled away even as the motion pulled her hair painfully, and retreated to the door, digging blindly through her purse for her keys, and babbling apologies and trying _so hard_ not to cry.

 _Oh god oh god oh god,_ she thought, _I kissed him and he... he..._ and then she _was_ crying, in great gasping sobs, and apologising over and over, “Oh god Matt, I’m sorry, I didn’t, I... please don’t be angry, I’m so sorry, you don’t want _me_... why would you? God, so sorry, I...”

“Stop it.” His voice was low, but it cut through the building hysteria and Alex just stood there, shaking and not looking at him.

“Alex.” Matt’s voice was terribly gentle, and she was bitterly sure he was trying to let her down easily, after all they were friends, he might not _want_ her in spite of the constant flirting, but he wouldn’t really _hurt_ her, he... but he was getting up and walking over to her. Slowly, so _slowly_ , as though she were a frightened child or a wild animal, and she brought her trembling hands up to cover her face so she wouldn’t have to look at the disappointment and disgust she was sure must be in his eyes. “ _Alex_. Look at me.” When he reached her he grasped her wrists and gently pulled them away from her face.

What he saw there made him want to cry. Her soft skin was all mottled with crying, and her lips were trembling and her downcast eyes were still swimming with tears. He said nothing, just tugged gently on the hands he held until she followed him back to the couch. He sat down on one end of it and pointed to the other end, so she sat, numbly, and stared at her hands, wringing in her lap. “I’m sorry...” she said again, in a whisper this time, and waited for him to do something, say something, _anything_. just to get this humiliating experience over with. But what he did say was so unexpected that it startled her out of her contemplation of her own hands.

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why? Why are you sorry? For what?”

“Well...” Dammit, he was going to make her say it, make her humiliate herself even further, and she hadn’t expected this of him. Not of _Matt_ , he wouldn’t... would he? But she gritted her teeth and said it. “For kissing you.” He didn’t react and she rushed on. “You obviously hated it, and why wouldn’t you? Daft old woman you thought of as your friend jumps you at the first opportunity, and of course you’re angry and... and disg--”

“No,” he interrupted. “Just surprised.” And he went on as she stared at him, mouth open. “I had... er... rather given up hope that you’d be interested...” Now it was his turn to stare at his hands in his lap, though he kept talking, almost mumbling the next thing he said. “I... I’ve wanted you for _years_ , Alex.”

“But you never said anything!”

“Oh, yeah, when exactly should I have said it Alex?” Matt was... not quite angry, but frustrated and exasperated, she decided. “Should I have told you I lusted for you when as far as I knew you were happily married? Told you I wanted to shag you brainless when you were raw and hurting from your breakup? Told you **_I_** wanted to be the one who had you “kind of sort of taken”? When the Mrs Robinson jokes were flying fast and furious and they clearly made you uncomfortable? When _exactly_ should I have said something Alex? Tell me!” He was all but shouting now, but Alex was elated.

He had wanted her _all that time_.

Her little fancy wasn’t nearly as one-sided as she’d thought.

And so she took a deep breath and opened her arms.

“How about now?”


End file.
